Lots of interesting, funny, idiotic, and insightful things were said by the Mets—and about them—recently. Here are some of our favorites.
To be fair to Francesa, I’m sure after those ‘first couple days,’ he was a real help to his wife.
"What are you going to do? I mean you are going to sit there and look at your wife in a hospital bed for two days? Your wife doesn’t need your help the first couple of days; you know that you’re not doing much the first couple days with the baby that was just born." —Mike Francesa on Daniel Murphy taking paternity leave [Daily News]
…oh, never mind.
[Francesa predicted he wouldn't change diapers, but could handle the middle-of-the-night feedings.] "One in each arm, watching 'SportsCenter,'" —Mike Francesa on performing his fatherly duties [Newsday]
Murphy should take some notes and romantically plan for the miracle of life to happen in the offseason.
[Mike Francesa and his wife are expecting twins in mid-February.] "Right after the football season." —Mike Francesa [Newsday]
Comparatively, Francesa’s lack of parenting might make him the ‘Numbah One’ father in NY sports talk radio.
"That’s not me. I wouldn’t [take paternity leave.] Quite frankly, I would have said C-section before the season starts. I need to be at Opening Day. I’m sorry." —Boomer Esiason [Newsday]
Money is what makes a child successful in life, spending time and loving them is false hustle.
"[Baseball] is what makes our money. This is how we’re going to live our life. This is going to give my child every opportunity to be a success in life. I’ll be able to afford any college I want to send my kid to because I’m a baseball player . . . No complications—get your ass back to work.’’ —Boomer Esiason, continued [Newsday]
‘Look I want to be a good father, but I just don’t have the right plumbing.’
"We don’t have the plumbing to take care of what needs to be taken care of." —Boomer Esiason [Newsday]
Mrs. Carton is a lucky woman.
"You get your ass back to your team and you play baseball. That’s my take on it. There’s nothing you can do anyway. You’re not breastfeeding the kid. What are you doing? I’ve got four of these little rugrats. There’s nothing to do." —Craig Carton [Newsday]
We can debate bullpen management/lineup construction ad-nauseam but this might be the important part of TC’s job.
"Murphy took the high road, but Collins came out swinging: 'When you start attacking Dan Murphy’s credibility, you need to look in the mirror.'" —Andy Martino relaying Terry Collins response to those critical of Murphy taking paternity leave [Twitter]
Lest he be mistaken for caring.
"[Tejada] didn't know what to do, so he did nothing." —Terry Collins [ESPN]
Welcome to the Mets.
"It's like a bad dream." —Chris Young on his injury [ESPN]
Seems like there’s a lot of ‘great guys and good teammate’ in our pen, that’s got to count for something right?
"I feel bad for Bobby [Parnell]. What I want is for Bobby to be OK. I saw in spring training that he's a great guy and a good teammate. I want this guy to come back soon. I want him closing games for the Mets." —Jose Valverde [ESPN]
I’m picturing Nimmo flexing in various poses as he gives this quote.
"They put 20 pounds on me. And it was really good muscle. None of it was bad weight. I had a nutritionist watching what I was eating. We just did it the right way. And I felt like that was what I needed. I felt like I needed to move on and train a little bit more like a professional. Obviously now you see the results of that physically." —Brandon Nimmo [ESPN]
#lolmets #snakebitten #rayrameriezisdrnick (Am I doing this right?)
"It was a situation where we got the MRI done in Savannah, and it happens where nothing showed up, so I played the rest of the season with it. I let the people know afterward it still wasn’t all the way there. I went to New York and that’s when we found out everything that happened. And we went to Cleveland, too, and saw a pretty good hand doctor there, Dr. Thomas Graham. He said, ‘It isn’t going to change things. You don’t need surgery. They’ve already repaired themselves. You’re just going to have to get it stronger.’ And, actually, we took a couple of months off." —Brandon Nimmo [ESPN]
TC continued, "or, you know, he’s out for the season."
"We saw it in spring training and Bobby [Parnell] said it’s a work in progress. He’s got to build it up. He hit 95 in spring training; he hit 94 today. He’s going to get there." —Terry Collins [nj.com]
Yeah, it’s not like there’s anyone claiming to be an @injuryexpert or anything.
"It’s something we constantly look at [pitching injury signs.] But I don’t think we have—or the industry has—any solid answers. That’s for sure." —Sandy Alderson [New York Times]
I get the point, I’m not sure if a team would sign up for a guaranteed under .500 versus the chance for more.
"Let me put it this way, would this team be happy with 80 wins? I think they’d sign up for that right now." —Anonymous scout on Sandy’s 90 wins prediction challenge [New York Post]
I would’ve also accepted, ‘The Nats who were we thought they were and we let them off the hook.’
"Not a good day, obviously. It started out great, and anytime you get to Stephen Strasburg like that, get four [runs] off of him and you get him out of there after six [innings] or whatever it was, you need to capitalize on that and we didn’t do that. We gave this one away today. We flat-out gave it away. For us to accomplish what we want to accomplish, we’re not good enough to just be giving a game away." —David Wright [ESPN]
AA Quote of the Week
"Driving into work this morning, I heard it on both sports stations, and the fact that people are being hard on Murphy for missing 2 games out of 162 is downright disgusting in my opinion. My son was born 1 month ago tomorrow, and I took off starting the Monday my wife was admitted to the hospital through the following Tuesday. I will also be taking 2 weeks off when my wife’s maternity leave is over to spend time with my son before he has to be in daycare full time.
"The fact that this guy is getting shit on in the media by fathers is absolutely deplorable. What’s more important, a few days of work, or the birth of your child. Those first few days, even in the hospital, are so important, not just for you and your child but for you and your wife to realize what has just happened and how much your lives are changed for the better." —asobrock